ART REVIEW
“Art Against the Wall”
Through Aug. 22. 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. Free. Gallery 72, 2 City Plaza at 72 Marietta St. 404-546-6980, www.ocaatlanta.com.
Bottom line: A thoughtful, albeit disconnected meditation on race and history.
Race is not an issue many contemporary art exhibitions in Atlanta tackle. Perhaps the topic is still too volatile and divisive for artists to broach even in the contemporary South, and for that reason, “Art Against the Wall” at Gallery 72 in downtown Atlanta is a welcome effort to grapple with history and race.
The newly opened Gallery 72 occupies the ground floor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s former downtown offices, which now house the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management. With the loss of City Gallery East — a vast and important exhibition space in what is now Ponce City Market — Gallery 72 offers another exhibition space for Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
The premise of “Art Against the Wall,” curated by Atlanta artist Radcliffe Bailey, is to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s Battle of Atlanta, perhaps a way of softening the blow of a show so provocatively about race, by couching it in a historical anniversary.
The show appears to be heavily influenced by a 2005 exhibition at New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery, “The Whole World Is Rotten,” and includes several artists featured in that Shainman show, among them Ghanaian artist Paa Joe and photographer Stephen Shames. Bailey, who is represented by the gallery, also includes a 19th-century wooden sculpture by an anonymous artist of a sleeping African-American figure that appeared in the Jack Shainman show. What Bailey doesn’t include is his own work — which appeared in that 2005 show — a thankful omission considering how often artists curating group shows succumb to that temptation.
For “Art Against the Wall,” Bailey has assembled a collection of regional and international artists and also a selection of artifacts on loan from the Atlanta History Center and the Jack Shainman Gallery, which are often more fascinating and culturally loaded than the purpose-built, idea-laden artworks on view. Bailey has unearthed some fascinating relics of another age that celebrate black heroism and identity.
The tone of the show is largely funereal, conveying a strong feeling of death, loss and protest. The historical artifacts in the show are especially rich and meaningful and prove an interesting juxtaposition with the contemporary art on view. Included are a Buffalo Soldier’s hat circa 1907 and a drum carried by a member of the Black Infantry in the U.S. Civil War. In one vitrine, Bailey has combined a small teacup and spoon from the Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895 embossed with images of the Negro Building, dedicated to African-American achievement. The exposition was the site of Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech, which reinforced a separate but equal society. Within that same vitrine is an ivory pipe attributed to a captain in the 1st U.S. Colored Troops featuring a naked woman carved in ivory.
Seen side by side, the souvenirs paint a portrait of the personal, human dimensions of African-American life often lost in history books. In a similar vein, seven black-and-white photographs by photojournalist Shames of Black Panther Party members in the 1960s suggest African-Americans not as victims, but as forces to be reckoned with, demanding full personhood.
Other pieces offer a vision of blackness that is more fragile and wounded, as in the video piece “Inzilo” by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng. In that black-and-white video, a man slowly peels off thick segments of what looks like his own skin, leaving a pile of black shards at his feet. The poetic, melancholy piece conveys ideas of mourning, loss and regeneration that link it in tone to Atlanta artist E.K. Huckaby’s “Table of the Fallen.” In that painting, a white table set for dinner glows with an incandescent light, conveying a sense of somber commemoration and celebration.
In the same room, a European fort the size of a large dollhouse topped by a coffin and built by Ghanaian artist Paa Joe suggests an ugly, militaristic history of Western colonization of other nations and buildings once used to house Africans destined for exportation as slaves.
While the mood of “Art Against the Wall” is somber and thoughtful, it is an act of faith to connect the dots between works. Better to simply take in this diverse artwork and bask in the various strains of rage, mourning, pride and beauty assembled.
